It is not yet known when the giant new moon rocket will leave Earth.
A fully stacked Space Launch System rocket and its accompanying launch tower emerged from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first time on Thursday evening. The rocket and capsule were carried on top of a giant crane to the launch site more than four miles away.
The rolling out of the V.A.B. is an "immense moment" for the vehicle, according to the deputy administrator for exploration systems development at NASA headquarters.
The journey took a long time. NASA said that the rocket reached its destination at 1:45 a.m. on Friday.
The scene on Thursday and Friday was reminiscent of the Apollo era of NASA when the rockets used for moon landings made similar journeys to the launchpad. The same vehicle was used on Thursday as the one that transported the Saturn 5s, refurbished and modernized for Artemis, the new NASA program to return astronauts to the lunar surface one day.
The rocket will sit for the next two weeks as engineers check out various systems on the rocket and launchpad. The tests will end in early April with hundreds of thousands of gallons of cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen flowing into the propellant tanks.
The rocket will not leave the ground. This dress rehearsal will be the last major run-through before a launch and will include the filling of the liquid propellants. The engines will not start with about 10 seconds left.
The rocket will return to the Vehicle Assembly Building after a wet dress rehearsal.
The rocket will be ready for launch the next time it emerges. NASA wants to see how the rehearsal goes before they make a decision on when that might be.
There will be no astronauts on the first mission. The crewless test flight, known as Artemis 1, will first loop around Earth before it leaves low-Earth and goes to the moon. A few days later, the capsule will leave the second stage and travel around the moon.
The mission will last about three weeks and end with a splash in the Pacific Ocean.
The Space Launch System is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.
NASA plans to send astronauts to the moon and back for the first time in 42 years in the year 2024. The Artemis 3 mission, which is to land another crew of astronauts on the moon, could be delayed again.
The landing craft for the moon landing mission will be a giant rocket. This year may see the first test flight to space by Starship.
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